The Ministry Of Truth

Once upon a time there was an English football manager who won things that mattered.

He adored the game, respected its heritage and never lost an infectious enthusiasm for the potential of 22 fellas running around after a round leather ball.

He didn’t abuse the reporters who (at times) abused him; he didn’t refuse to speak for years on end to the broadcasters who helped pay his wages; he took evident pleasure from developing stars rather than buying them in.  He conducted himself with humility and humanity.  His teams played pretty damn good football.  And you got the feeling he’d have done it even if it didn’t pay him a penny.

How sad that he passed away having had to witness the crumbling of his beloved Newcastle United, whose current, humiliating predicament can be traced directly to his sacking in five years ago.

The English game, whose soul visibly diminishes with every passing month, today lost more than perhaps its last great manager.

Rest in peace, Sir Bobby.  And thank you.

Sir Bobby Robson CBE, 1933-2009

Apparently, the London Olympics start three years tomorrow. That’ll be nice, won’t it?

I’m desperate for there to be one hugely successful, absolutely sodden night for the British athletics team in the Olympic Stadium just so the subs on The Sun get to publish the ultimate headline:

To paraphrase Brian Micklethwait, during the last few weeks the ratio at this blog of things I really want to say to things that I am merely saying because of the self-imposed obligation to say something, however lame or inconsequential, has taken rather a turn in the wrong direction.

So until the start of September I am taking a break from regular blogging, as I did last summer.

This does not mean that I will for the next few weeks be forbidding myself from posting anything here, merely that I will not, for the time being, be posting something (almost) every day.  Unless, for the consecutive days in question, I just happen to feel like so doing.

The break I took last year renewed my enthusiasm for this place at a time when it was in the balance as to whether or not I would raze the Ministry to make way for new Subway and Starbucks franchises.  I hope this holiday has a similar restorative effect.

I leave you for now with some wise, wise words.  They come from the 6 July 1983 maiden speech in the House of Commons of one Anthony Charles Lynton Blair:

I am a Socialist not through reading a textbook that has caught my intellectual fancy, nor through unthinking tradition, but because I believe that, at its best, Socialism corresponds most closely to an existence that is both rational and moral. It stands for co-operation, not confrontation; for fellowship, not fear. It stands for equality, not because it wants people to be the same but because only through equality in our economic circumstances can our individuality develop properly. British democracy rests ultimately on the shared perception by all the people that they participate in the benefits of the common weal.

That worked out well, didn’t it…?

May your summers glisten with faint beads of perspiration.

He has a halo: we really do adore him
For he has a halo – can we touch him?

Tesco has… carried out research which reveals shoppers want more choice when it comes to buying their favourite fruit. Instead of buying a green or yellow banana, the retailer says, shoppers now want a variety of colours.

Forgive me if I’m being a fuckwit, but what other colours do bananas come in apart from (in order) green, yellow, brown and black?

(I keep thinking I’ll get bored of this and then I see something else that sends my blood pressure soaring and my spirits plummeting.)

Oh, this is good. This is very good.

If you want to learn just how clueless and spineless Labour MPs are, read Allegra Stratton’s article “Why plot to oust Gordon Brown failed” in today’s Harry Potter Bugle. Seriously, how cluelessly fuckwitted are these people?

By Wednesday evening, the covert tactic unravelled as thousands of emails arrived. Apart from the odd one from genuinely sympathetic MPs, spoofs, foreign emails, and junk emails flowed in.

Who’d'a thunk that a Hotmail address leaked to a national newspaper might not be the best way to conduct these affairs? (Particularly when I am reliably informed that the rebels without a clue all have ENORMOUS penises and therefore have no need for lengthening potions and devices.)

Meanwhile, I can exclusively reveal that Roger Alton’s pulsating organ, The Independent, is both (a) clueless, and (b) dishonest.

It is true that the great bulk of the British public wants a change at the top – but nothing suggests that by this they mean a new leader of the Labour Party; no opinion polls have indicated that with Alan Johnson, or David Milliband, or (fill in gap) as leader of the party, its electoral chances would be transformed.
- Dominic Lawson, The Independent, 9 June 2009, page 27

Er…

Johnson would deny Tories outright victory
‘Independent’ poll reveals that new leader could transform Labour’s prospects
- The Independent, 9 June 2009, page 1

Once upon a time newspaper employed sub-editors, proofreaders and sense checkers to avoid this kind of idiotic and entirely preventable error.

Now, a work experience kid just changes the t’Internet version of the story and fails to say that they have done so:

It is true that the great bulk of the British public wants a change at the top – but little suggests that by this they mean a new leader of the Labour Party; only one opinion poll has indicated that with Alan Johnson, or David Miliband, or (fill in gap) as leader of the party, its electoral chances would be improved.
- Dominic Lawson, The Independent, 9 June 2009, online edition

Even bearing in mind Lawson’s usual pisspoor efforts, this is pathetic stuff.

And we can now firmly discount The Independent as an accurate, honest and impartial historical record.

If there’s one thing guaranteed to make me smile even when I’m feeling rough as a badger’s arse, it’s the sight of the piss being ripped out of Disgraced Former Europe Minister Keith Vaz in public by his colleagues.

Has a more oleaginous cock ever walked this Earth?

Everything I was going to post this afternoon has already been posted here.  Go there.  Read it.  Click the links.  You won’t be disappointed.  It’s very good.

I know that there are some who’d prefer things like egg-chucking at Griffin not to happen, and I can see that point of view. I just happen to think that seeing his fat smelly face looking frightened and upset is a wondrous thing. For sure, the way to defeat the fascists is to engage the working class into politics they can believe in, to work hard on real solutions to poverty and unemployment, and to fight at every turn to denounce the lies spouted by prejudiced idiots about immigration and multiculturalism. Yes yes, I know that. But making that vile fascist tit look stupid is a good thing. Satire is egg-chucking without the actual egg, and we need that too. We need all kinds of attacks on Griffin, making him look ridiculous in every sense, exposing his nastiness and making him into the national joke he is.